Nerrisa brings up an interesting idea on the forums that I hadn't considered before-- what if we all got to choose a third profession when we reach level 80? For some, handling two professions is more than enough, but there are also plenty of people who could definitely benefit from a third. And although the professions are paired off pretty well (Alchemy and Herbalism, Leatherworking and Skinning), there are definitely some trios that would work well also-- Enchanting goes great with anything, and Mining, Blacksmithing and Engineering would be a great combo, too, for power players who've reached 80 and are looking for lots more to do.

Of course, Bornakk says no to the idea (actually, as Incgamers points out, he really says there are "no unannounced plans" for it to happen, which is quite a few qualifiers for him), so it's unlikely that we'll have an extra profession slot to face Arthas with. But don't forget that we will have a new profession, Inscription, and if Blizzard adds many more professions, maybe we will need a third slot to keep them all straight. I'd love for my characters to learn more, I'm just not sure if I'd have the diligence to get them all to 375-- I'm having enough trouble with two as it is.

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.


It takes it to make it – and let's face it, craftspeople love goodies and gadgets. Addons for professions are some of the most satisfying, relieving the drudgery of tasks such as repetitive combines and character-hopping to verify inventories. Today's installment of Insider Trader is a reminder to revisit your favorite addons site and take a peek at what's fresh for craftspeople. New addons come out every week, and if you haven't surveyed what's out there recently, you just might be in for a pleasant surprise.

Read on for a sampling of today's most downloaded addons for craftspeople – no profession-specific addons this time (we'll save those for a later installment), but rather a taste of some of the sweet little tools that make life easier for every profession. Don't forget to stop by to post a comment and share your own favorites.

Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.


What's in store for your profession in patch 2.3? Without further ado, Insider Trader is here to update you on what craftspeople should be looking out for, now on the test realm. (Sure, you could read the official PTR patch notes -- but then you wouldn't get links to all our helpful posts at WoW Insider!)

The big news for professions, of course, is the new engineering mounts. Now that the mats list for these sweet little rides is out, we know you're all revving your engines to get those last engineering skill points. Early next week, we'll run a special engineering leveling guide with some inside advice on that brutal stretch of leveling from 300 to 375.

Until then, here are the collected notes for profession changes in patch 2.3.

Big Bear Butt Blogger recently put a call out to guilds to make a list of raid consumables by class. Foods, potions (both Guardian and Battle), Runes, Oils and Stones. He started it off by listing what he felt every feral druid should bring to a standard raid and what components are needed to make it all.

Two Priest bloggers took him up on the challenge as well. The Egotistical Priest has written up a list of not only consumables every healer should bring to a raid, but also what permanent enchants every raiding healer should have. Priestly Endeavors also generated a healer consumable raid list, but also adds in a list for shadow priests raiding.

Those were the only lists I could find. If you know of any other class-specific raid consumable lists floating out there on the Internet, list them below.

If you're the type of player who finds cauldrons useful, then you probably already know about them – and if you have no idea what they're for, you probably have no use for them. But Insider Trader is the Martha Stewart of WoW Insider – we happen to think that any tool that helps other players take responsibility for their vitals is, as Martha would say, a Good Thing. So let's talk about the so-called pot o' pots.

Cauldrons are the alchemical, resistance-pot equivalent of a warlock's soulwell. The alchemist creates a bubbling cauldron that other raid members can click on to receive a major resistance potion from one of the various schools of magic – there are cauldrons for each type of magic except for Holy. Cauldrons can turn out 25 potions over a five-minute duration, a decided improvement over creating, carrying and handing out that many individual pots (and quite a bit cheaper than making even less than half the number of normal major protection pots).

Read more about cauldrons, as well as a handy tip about how to use multiple healthstones (yes, that's more than one at a time), after the jump.

Insider Trader is your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

If you're an alchemist, you either love the discovery system – or you despise it and wish to blast it back to the depths of Developers' Hell (that's one of those rock-and-lava zones, right?). Implemented with The Burning Crusade expansion, the discovery system gives alchemists a small (err, very small ... ok, very, very small ... ok, infinitesimally small) chance of discovering a new recipe every time they make a potion, elixir or flask. Players seem split between considering it a creative new mechanic or an annoying contrivance and roadblock, but after several patches and adjustments, the system seems here to stay.

Let's jump right in with your most burning question: Just how small (err, very small ... ok, very, very small ... ok, infinitesimally small) actually are your chances for making a discovery? Pretty darn small. Prior to patch 2.1, the most commonly cited figure floating around was 0.01%. (Discoveries were disabled via hot-fix for a short time just before patch 2.1, reportedly to prevent an exploit in which alchemists who repeatedly tried to create potions with no bag space could make discoveries without actually creating a potion or using potion ingredients.)

In patch 2.1, Blizzard noted that discovery rates were increased "significantly," but nobody seems to have performed (or published) an extensive enough analysis to pinpoint an honest number. One popular guesstimate puts the current discovery rate at 0.1% -- but really, your guess is as good as any. (Cauldron discovery rates are on a different table and run much higher than the general rate. Players report making cauldron discoveries, estimated at about 30%, as frequently as every one to five batches.)

New recipes have appeared on the test server with our Karazhan-related friends, the Archmages of Kirin Tor sect known as The Violet Eye. Some of these recipes are very nice indeed, including a high-end crafted leather chest for rogues and feral druids, a +20 agility enchant to weapons, a Flask recipe granting +35 to all resists & +18 to all stats and another high end leatherworking recipe, this time a cloak with a boatload of strength and melee crit stats.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Violet Eye faction, reputation is gained through the key quest for Karazhan as well as a quest within Karazhan and killing mobs in the 10-man raid zone. Reputation rewards they currently provide include the Violet Signet Rings (through a reputation gaining quest), the Iceguard frost-resist, plate recipes for blacksmiths, a crafted frost-resist ring and an Inscription granting +7 to all resists on a shoulder item.

Read on for exact details on the new recipes.

Well, this is definitely something I've never thought about before. Corntrollio of Laughing Skull asks the forums, "Ever wonder what mana or healing potions taste like? What do you imagine them tasting like?"

After thinking about this a little, I realized that I actually do sort of subscribe a taste to potions based on their color. Mana pots are blue raspberry Icees, health pots are strawberry daquiris, and all the little yellow elixirs that I constantly drink as a rogue are Mountain Dew (it gives you energy!)

Other suggestions for potion taste include:

• Major Dreamless Sleep Potion: Nyquil
• Ironshield Potion: Soy sauce ("you give me someone who after taking in 900000% of their daily sodium DOES NOT think they can attack a giant fire giant, AND WIN, and I show you a better man.")
• Adept's Elixir: Midori
• Noggenfogger Elixir: Smirnoff and apple Pucker
• Elixir of Major Defense: Black licorice
• Fel Regeneration Potion: Burning

There were many suggestions, but in the end, Jivursa of Dalaran won the thread with "I believe they must taste pretty bad. After all, even if my LIFE DEPENDED ON IT I could not bring myself to drink another until 2 minutes had passed." What do you think potions taste like?

Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

One of the questions you'll generally always come across on the first page or two of the Blizzard profession forums is The Respec Question: How do I respec from X specialty to Y specialty? With drastically varying procedures from profession to profession and scattershot updates and changes from patch to patch, it's hard to know when you've finally come across an accurate, definite answer – yet if you get it wrong, you could be wasting hundreds of gold and hours of skillups. Bindar of Aggramar has compiled a guide covering specialty respecs for all professions. We'll take a look at the basics right here for you.

The first thing you need to know about changing your profession specialty is how to drop your current spec, a spot where a surprising number of players run into a brick wall. Don't get your netherweave in a twist – it's just a technical difficulty, easily remedied. If you speak with the appropriate NPC to unlearn your specialty and select that option only to find that nothing happens, it's almost certainly an add-on conflict. Open the World of Warcraft folder on your computer and find your interface folder. Rename the whole folder with a temporary name, which disables all your add-ons. Then hop back into game and try the dialogue again; you should be back in business. (Don't forget to go back and rename your interface folder to its original name when you're done.)

We are back at our happy little camp of the power source spot in the press area to liveblog the WoW Professions and Items panel with Tom Chilton, Travis Day and Jon LeCraft.

Updated: This post has been cleaned up and extensively added to after it was partially eaten by a technical error.

Liveblog after the jump.

Each week, Daniel Howell contributes BigRedKitty, a column with strategies, tips and tricks for and about the hunter class sprinkled with a healthy dose of completely improper, sometimes libelous, personal commentary.

BRK loathes professions. Obviously, someone has to be enchanters and leatherworkers, but why in the blue blazes does it have to be you? Please excuse our massive generalization, but these things just don't bring in the gold like farming raw materials does.

But you're enamored with engineering, aren't you. You're addicted to alchemy, love leatherworking, enraptured with enchanting and nobody better belittle your blacksmithing. It's a great part of the game! you squeel. Well, fine, have your fun. Just remember that our Epic Flying Mount Loan interest rates are mighty competitive, alright Mr. Trump?

Um. But you know... as long as you're going to be buying our materials from the auction house, perhaps you might like to know that we are available for hire. If you can manufacture some of the stuff we love, we'd be more than happy to work a little of the ol' barter system, capice? What do we mean? Well, tell us specifically what profession you're going to level and we can give you a little hint as to what we hunters like. Well, adore. OK, we'd trade our college fund for some of our favorite manufactured things. You need materials, well BRK is your farmer. What would we like? Well we're thrilled you asked!

While some may argue that World of Warcraft doesn't have enough professions, there are enough choices to leave any new player at a loss when it comes to selecting one for the first time. So today we're going to discuss the good and bad of the game's ten primary professions and six secondary professions -- and hopefully give you the knowledge to make some informed decisions next time you need to chose a profession for yourself.

Interested in knowing a bit more about the game's professions? Keep reading! Want to tell us which professions you find the most useful (and why)? Leave us a comment!

Each week, Lisa Poisso brings us Insider Trader -- your weekly inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.

In the wake of the avalanche of item and crafting tweaks ushered in by patch 2.1, Insider Trader takes a look at the much-maligned Primal Nether. How do you get one? Do you even need one? Should you roll for one?

And keep reading for an Insider Trader tip on a special tactic engineers -- yes, engineers! -- can use to get certain types of motes.

But first things first: Primal Nethers. These glowing globules of crafting goodness have about a 5-10% chance of dropping from final bosses in non-heroic Burning Crusade instances, and they're a guaranteed drop from final bosses of heroic instances. Post-2.1, you can also purchase them for the bargain price of 10 Badges of Justice from G'eras in Shattrath City.